Stone Cold
by Melpomene blue
Summary: Ziva irritated the wrong person. One of her coworkers will pay the price.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Stone Cold

Email: The backstory, etc of NCIS is not owned by me… no monies were made from the production of this story…

She was cold. It was the one thing she could seem to wrap her brain around. She was cold but that was okay. At least it seemed to be okay. If nothing else, the cold would help to slow the bleeding.

Yes, that would be good. It would also help to preserve her body so that if she was found --

No! Her mental admonishment scraped against her bones like fingernails on slate. When she was found. Yes. When she was found, she would be more easily identified. Being found alive was not something she expected.

Her knees had long ago gone numb from the strain of kneeling on the frigid cement floor. Her arms had been tightly bound behind her and deprived of circulation even longer than that.

She did not want to be rescued, she knew. Rescue meant being unbound. Being unbound meant circulation returning to her extremities. Circulation returning was nothing more than another sincere promise of more pain.

She had endured enough -- she had no desire to add to what was already a nearly insurmountable mountain of agony. It wasn't a bout of suicidal tendencies, just plain common sense.

She didn't want to hurt any more. If she thought they would be the least bit accommodating, she would consider egging her captors into killing her and put a premature end to her suffering. But she held no hope they would be so gracious. They had proven far too talented at keeping her alive.

Every fiber of her being was focused on the task of remaining in the position in which she had been placed. The hood covering her head prevented her from seeing if anyone was still in the room and although she could not sense another presence, experience would not allow her to so much as waver. Experience had proven that no matter how silent and still her prison, she was never alone.

-8 days earlier-

"Gibbs!" Abby grinned broadly at the proferred Caff-Pow. "You shouldn't have."

She had taken her first sip before he had a chance to mention the reason for the bribe. She was a pushover for bribery, she knew, not to mention pretty damned cheap... but her chances to dash out on her own for a caffeine infusion were in increasingly short supply and her morning caffeine burst had worn off hours before. Bert's pillow abilities had been weighing heavy

in her thoughts.

"That sample we took from the crime scene."

Abby raised her eyebrows. "You mean that itsy-bitsy shard of plastic I'm supposed to analyze even though it isn't even big enough to be legitimately called a sample?" Her cheery tone did not mask her feelings of near-impossibility of her chore.

"That would be the one. I need the results in an hour." He leveled his gaze at her.

"You do acknowledge what I just said, right?" She took another sip of the Caff-Pow.

"An hour, Abbs."

"I'll try. But don't blame me if your resident lab rat blows up the lab trying to fulfill your request." She flashed a mock salute and winked conspiratorially.

"I will blame you. Don't blow up the lab, just evaluate the sample."

It had taken her more than an hour. It had, in fact, taken longer than her usual shift and she had not so much as looked up from her equipment until well after the long shadows of deepening evening had given way to the pitch of night and pools of light cast by the parking security lights.

She hadn't expected to be leaving so late and had therefore hot thought twice about parking her vehicle in the far corner of the parking lot that morning. She had been late arriving due to a train wreck of a fender-bender right on her exit ramp and someone had already taken her accustomed spot, so she had merely grabbed the first available space she had seen... the furthest one from the building where her lab was quartered and nestled in the midst of the only dark area of the usually well-lit lot. Had she left on time, she would never have noticed how dark it was in that area.

As it was, she was preoccupied with the happy memory of being able to drop the requested report off in Gibbs' in box for him to find in the morning. She had been half tempted to run it by his home and wake him up... Of course, she wouldn't be waking him up as he would more than likely be working on his boat.

The lack of chance for rousing him from his slumber had swayed her decision to just leave the report in his office. Her Gibbs-delivered Caff-Pow had long ago worn off and thoughts of her own home were beckoning with promises of warmth and unimpeded slumber.

She was smiling in anticipation of a well earned rest when all conscious thought was ended by a flash of bright pain. She didn't had a chance to so much as gasp before she had been tucked into the back of a linen service van. If anyone saw the vehicle or thought the van's presence strange, no one said anything when it slowly pulled through the parking lot and out through the main exit.

-to be continued-


	2. Chapter 2

The hood they had secured over her head was stiff and she could feel the fibers of the rough material sticking to her skin, pulling ever so slightly. Whoever might find her, which ever law enforcement agency it might be, she fervently hoped they wouldn't run any tests on the hood. Surely there would be no need. The manner and means of her death should be easy enough to deduce without it.

Of course, if it was something that came through her lab and if she was the one in her lab, she would test the hell out of it... maybe even borrow the use of her new friend's infrared spectrophotometer. She would want to know everything she possibly could. After all, it was that hunger for knowledge that had caused her university studies to be focused on forensics in the first place. But not all forensics lab rats shared that desperate need for extensive knowledge... Perhaps her replacement would be less interested in all those seemingly unimportant little details. She could only hope.

She knew it was a foolish worry. In the grand scheme of things it didn't matter if they knew she had cried – that the hood had absorbed as many tears as it had drops of blood. They wouldn't think less of her, not really. After all, she was a civilian and definitely lacking in the field-training department.

Trained in self-defense? Sure. Survival? Not so much. She also hadn't been trained in how to keep from breaking under torture.

Technically, she hadn't broken under their terror tactics because they hadn't actually utilized any. Sure, they had amused themselves tormenting her, but they never spoke when they were in the room with her. They were frighteningly silent. She had wished they

would ask her a question, any question, and provided her with some way to diminish the pain of their punishment. But they had not and she had been forced to simply endure.

Her endurance, however, was quickly coming to an end. She could no longer control the trembles of over-taxed muscles nor prevent her legs from slowly ceasing to support her. Soon, kneeling would no longer be a concern and there would be no amount of pain applied to her that would prove sufficient to alter it.

-

"I have a package that was specified for hand delivery."

The young man stood uneasily in the doorway, his eyes nervously moving from one face to another. His gaze fell on Ziva at last.

"Well?" Gibbs held out a hand, waiting.

"It... it's for Agent David."

All eyes turned from the young mail clerk to Ziva. Only Ziva kept her eyes trained on the man and her expression impassive.

He was afraid of her, that much was obvious. No doubt rumors of the NCIS' resident Israeli-trained Mossad agent had filtered all the way down to the mail room. No doubt many of the rumors were founded in reality.

She accepted the parcel and stared at the mail clerk until he fled. Gibbs watched in silent amusement before stepping into away from the group and entering a conference room, shutting the door solidly behind him.

"Now, now, Ziva. Is that any way to make friends and influence people?" Tony mused. "I think you should probably run that down to Abby's lab though and let her check it out first, just in case."

"Abby's not here." Ziva's voice was clipped and certain. For the last two days, Abby had failed to arrive at her usual time. It had been verging on habit: Ziva would pull into the NCIS parking lot and glance into the rear view mirror to see Abby smiling and waving behind her. But now for the second day in a row, the quirky grin and silly wave had been absent from her morning arrival. Ziva was oddly beginning to miss the strange ritual.

"Sure she is," Tony persisted. "Her car's here. It's on the other side of the lot, but it's here. Saw it when I pulled in this morning." He leaned back in his chair and stacked his hands behind his head. "You didn't keep Abby company in her lab last night, did you, Probie?"

"What?" McGee colored at the insinuation. "No. I left at the same time you did yesterday. We rode down in the elevator together."

Ziva tuned them out as she studied the parcel in her hands. The mailing label was one of those computer generated ones and lacked a return address. It also lacked postage, which meant it must have been hand-delivered. Shrugging, she slid a fingernail through the tape seal of the flap. The brown paper was set aside and she flipped a CD case over in her hands.

The labels were missing and any cover art had been replaced by black card stock. It reminded her of something Abby would have stuck on one of her shelves downstairs.

Curious, she popped the case open... and froze. Her thoughts were racing to make sense of what she saw.

"Don't tell me you've got a secret admirer," Tony joked.

"Not an admirer." Ziva was relatively certain she had voiced her reply in English although by the looks of her co-workers she thought she might have slipped into Hebrew unknowingly.

"What's wrong?" McGee had picked up on Ziva's disquiet and left his desk to examine the object she held.

"Abby's not coming in today," she murmured. She fervently hoped she was mistaken, that Abby would suddenly appear in the elevator none the worse for wear. Of course, there had also been a time that she had hoped and prayed Ari would not force her hand. Her luck showed no signs of improving.

Before Tim could focus on her hands, she shoved the CD, case and enclosed Polaroid back into the brown paper wrapper and ignored all pleas for explanation. Gibbs was in the conference room -- and soon, so was Ziva.

"Can I help you, Agent David?" The sarcasm was thick enough to slice.

She remembered his conference call too late. Although, she admitted silently, she would have burst in even if she had remembered.

"It's Abby."

Gibbs cast her a confused look. "Yes, Abby was able to extract enough evidence from that sample to pin point our suspect. Get suited up, we're in the field in ten." He dismissed her and turned back toward his desk.

"No."

"What was that?" Gibbs' patience had never exactly been his strong suit.

"It's Abby?" She dropped her unwelcome gift on his desk among the jumble of case files. "Tell me it's not and I'll believe you." She met his eyes with a hard stare. "I want to believe it isn't."

"Ziva--" his ire was cut short as his eyes settled on the Polaroid. Gently, he lifted it by a corner and studied the image for a long moment.

"Agent Gibbs?"

He responded to the voice by disconnecting the call. "When?"

"I don't know. That was just delivered but Tony said that her car has not been moved from where she parked yesterday."

"What's on the disk?"

Ziva shook her head. "Based on the photo, I thought it would be better to preview the disk in private. I doubt it's a collection of Abby's favorite Christmas songs."

He lifted the phone's receiver and dialed, barking orders to secure both Abby's lab and the area around her car.

Ziva listened to the hustle of the outer office. He had called another team, she realized, when Tony's laugh rang out. Of course, they would not be able to investigate this case, even if they didn't exactly not investigate it.

She caught the end of his second phone call, "I don't know yet. I'll let you know when I do." He caught her eye when she glanced back at his face. He was worried, far more worried than he would be if that photograph had shown anyone other than Abby. She followed his invitation to step behind the table as he slid the disk into the available computer.

to be continued

_quick author's note: I don't mind constructive criticism... but be grown up enough to own up to it, especially if you're not going to be polite. And if you're going to be critical, be certain you use correct punctuation and sentence structure, please. Thank you, everyone who's been kind enough to review, and have a wonderful holiday season... (sheesh, I've been at work too long today... :P)_


	3. Chapter 3

She hoped it wouldn't be Ducky. It just wouldn't be right for him to have to do her autopsy. _His little lotus blossom…_ She almost smiled at the memory. Ducky liked her far too well to want to cut her open from stem to stern.

She was caught off guard by a wave of silent giggles. Nautical terminology, wouldn't Gibbs be proud. Of course Gibbs would never know since she was going to die before she ever saw him again. That was a rather depressing thought even as giddy with exhaustion as she was.

She would miss Ducky and Gibbs... not to mention the Director and Ziva, Timmy, Tony... She would miss them all. She would miss her lab and her music and her art. Of course she would be dead so she wouldn't know that she was missing them, but still… she imagined she would still feel the loss even so.

Dragging her thoughts back to her tenuous predicament, she tried to assess her situation. She thought she could hear the murmur of conversation in another room… or maybe upstairs, but anything more was lost to the nameless buzzing in her head. She couldn't even tell if the people were speaking English. That much information would at least give her an idea of who was holding her and why.

She was relatively certain she was being held in a cellar or basement of some sort. The temperature was right, as well as the cement floor. She had no way of knowing where the cellar was however, she had come to from her jaunt with unconsciousness already trussed up and in the dark – literally. For all she knew, she could have been unconscious for a day or more or even  
for only half an hour.

Unfortunately, she had no means of determining how long she had been held either. She thought she probably had been there for multiple days, but how many days were anyone's guess. Surely not more than a week… and possibly not even that long.

She was so tired. Her exhaustion made concentration on any one thing nearly impossible for any meaningful length of time. Maybe she would be able to slip unnoticed to the floor and sleep for just a few moments. The jolt of electricity that coursed through her body when she attempted to relax her position was enough to shake off the exhaustion.

She bit back the cry that begged to be released but she allowed her tears to fall unhindered. Why wouldn't they just let her die already? Would it really be so bad to lose their hostage? Probably, yes, it would. Hostages weren't any good as leverage if they weren't breathing.

She sucked in another breath and tried to ignore the painful hitch in her chest. Broken ribs, she  
supposed. At least cracked, if they weren't completely snapped. Shallow breaths had been the rule for the last few days. Shallow breaths that did nothing to clear out the must and dankness from her lungs. Shallow breaths were not healing breaths, but they were doing their part to keep her alive for the time being.

The gag that silenced her bit into her skin and she tested it again with her teeth. No more give than the last time she had tried it. She had been wondering on the nutrient value of the material should her daily dose of gruel not appear sometime soon.

**oOo**

"You know, boss, as practical jokes go – this one really isn't funny at all." Tony passed the Polaroid to Ducky, a confused half-smile playing at his lips. "Actually it's kind of sick."

They were all gathered around their little cluster of desks, extra chairs had been acquired to accommodate their increased numbers.

"It isn't a joke, DiNozzo."

"Sure it is," Tony insisted. "There's no way that's actually Abby – I mean, look at what she did to that lab assistant of hers... What was that guy's name? Abby can handle herself."

"And yet it is her and it isn't a joke."

Ducky had taken a chair near Ziva's desk. He laid the Polaroid down on the desktop with a tremor of remorse and shook his head slowly. "What I would like to know is, why would anyone wish to do so much harm to our Abigail?"

"That's what we're working on now."

Ziva was much quieter than usual at the impromptu team meeting. She knew she was considered cold and unfeeling, and that knowledge had never bothered her, but even she had not been able to continue viewing the disk past the first few minutes. How Gibbs had managed to watch the whole thing, she was not sure. Even the audio, which closing her eyes had not prevented her from hearing, was still echoing in her head.

She would never be able to begin to make this up to Abby.

"_This_ is our first priority," Gibbs spoke succinctly, his face masking any emotion he might be experiencing.

"Well, yeah. But what about…"

"The cases we were working have been passed on to other teams, the director has been made aware of the situation and is pursuing a possible lead." He eyed his assembled team. "The picture came with this." He held aloft the disk Ziva had been sent.

The disk. She shuddered involuntarily. She was immensely glad and horrified simultaneously that it was McGee who would be given the task of uncovering and deciphering what clues he could from the recording. He would probably spend the rest of the day down in Abby's lab hard at work to try to figure out what had happened to Abby, to try to find a means of locating her and bringing her home. And all Ziva could do was sit and try to forget what she had heard... Tim would be listening to it all day long.

Ziva stood suddenly, pushing her desk chair back with enough force that it rebounded off Mr. Palmer's shin with a dull crack and a yelp from Ducky's assistant.

"Sit down, Ziva."

She narrowed her eyes at Gibbs. "I can't just sit here while Abby's..."

"You can and you will. You are not leaving this building until we can guarantee your safety." He held up a finger when Ziva opened her mouth to argue. "I don't have the energy to waste worrying over _two_ missing people."

to be continued


	4. Chapter 4

Just a little longer.

Just a little while longer and she could be done with this mess. She had finally been allowed to lie down and sleep but, even as exhausted as she was, sleep eluded her.

The feelings of helplessness that had been building ever since her capture had waned for the moment and she again tried to assimilate some kind of plan for her imminent survival.

At first, she had liked her initial plan to just stay alive long enough for Gibbs or Tony or Ziva to burst in and rescue her. She had never played a damsel in distress very well but she thought she might not mind the whole "being saved" aspect of the role. But that plan had faded as time passed and she realized that her knights in shining armor were far more tarnished than she had ever imagined them to be.

Her next plan had been to make a run for it. This particular plan had been very short-lived. She was rarely untied and when she was, there were armed guards on all sides of her with guns pointed at her head. Even if one of them missed, one of the others was sure to make him mark. There had been some doubt on her part that the weapons were loaded until she had tripped while trying to stand on what must have been her second or third day of captivity and one of the guards had shot her.

He had actually shot her. Worse yet, he had not shot to kill, just maim. The bullet had passed through her upper arm, probably felt a lot worse that it had actually been, and had seemed to miss the bone. Regardless, it kept her from trying anything more.

One of her captors had produced a length of cloth and had tied it around the wound to staunch the flow of blood. Real top class first aid, she had mused at the time. The pain had gradually faded to a constant dull throb that never left her thoughts. She noticed how the pain in her arm had begun migrating down toward her fingertips and up into her shoulder the day after she had been shot. Her mind's eye had been flipping through all the possibilities of the infection she was relatively sure was raging through her body ever since.

What fun.

Hurting and exhausted, she desperately wanted to give up, and sometimes she did. But at other times, she hoped there would be a chance for her to get away. All she needed to do was keep her thoughts clear for long enough to recognize it when it made itself apparent.

And damn it all, she was supposed to go on a bowling date with Marty again. She wasn't about to miss out on that.

But every once in a while she just wanted to curl up, fall asleep, and not have to wake up again. Shivering in the cold of her prison, she closed her eyes against her own foolish tears but did not try to stop them.

Her saviors had better hurry up, she wasn't certain how much longer she wanted to hang on.

**-oOo-**

It was the question of why that kept nagging at her.

Why…

Why Abby?

Why now?

Just _why_…

Ziva paced. Her brain was scrambled, all her thoughts muddling in a sea of worried confusion. The pacing wasn't actually helping her concentration but it was helping to prevent her from becoming too unreasonably violent. She didn't think Gibbs would let her get away with murdering Tony regardless of the stressful circumstances.

The lights were lowered but still on. The other teams' cubicles nearly entirely vacant, but no one from their own team had left despite the late hour. Gibbs was sequestered with the Director in her office but his presence was heavy nevertheless. Even Ducky and Mr. Palmer had maintained their migrated presence upstairs although Ducky had moved from his space beside Ziva's desk to McGee's where he was helping paw through the stack of files that had accumulated since Ziva's arrival at the NCIS and Mr. Palmer was oddly cozily settled at Special Agent Lee's desk.

"You know, it might not have anything to do with the cases you've worked since you've been here. It could be someone else you ticked off before you ever came to NCIS."

Ziva spun on her heel and pinned Tony with a withering glare. "You are not helping."

"Neither are you," he responded with a sobering sigh and a wave at her well-worn path. "Sit down and work on that list before Gibbs gets back down here and realizes you haven't even started yet."

Ziva ignored his words and continued pacing. "It isn't the Mossad, Iranian Intelligence or anyone else remotely like them."

Tony narrowed his eyes. "What makes you say that?"

She spun and pinned him with a glare. "Because if it had been, they would have killed her outright and left her for us to find. Torture of innocents without issuing demands isn't in their fort."

"Uh huh, the word's forte… the phrase would be: _isn't their forte_. But I think I might even agree with you on this one. As pointed as it seems to be, it isn't violently pointed enough." Tony turned back to his computer but looked up again before he could focus on the screen. "What I don't get is: why Abby? What made her a prime target for revenge against you?"

It was the same thought she had been wracking her brain with since the first second she had seen the photo. "We don't know that it's revenge exactly," Ziva countered, guilt gnawing at her incessantly even as she said it.

She might as well have remained silent for all the attention Tony paid to her comment. "If she was targeted just as co-worker, then we all would have been in danger. Not to mention, there are a lot better targets than Abbs when it comes to your co-workers. It seems a little more personal than that. Besides, who would suspect that the Goth, tattooed, forensic lab tech would be friends with the only Mossad agent working with NCIS?" Tony paused before straightening in his chair and widening his eyes at Ziva. "You invited her over."

"I did what?" Ziva jerked to a stop.

"Yeah. She got an invitation to dinner at your place. I remember her talking about it after I found out you'd invited everyone except me."

"Yes. A few times…"

"Whoever this is, they've been watching you. That's how they knew who would be the better target." He smirked slightly. "And let me tell you now, thanks for never inviting me."

"Yet you have turned up at my door more often than Abby… At least once a week by some accounts."

"But you let _Abby_ in…"

"They knew better than to try to get leverage by abducting the only person Ziva _wouldn't_ invite into her home."

Tony froze at Gibbs' sudden appearance and turned away from Ziva to face his computer again and the programs running on the screen.

"Chances are she'd sooner let them kill you than go to any great lengths to prevent it." Gibbs dropped several folders on Ziva's desk. "For what it's worth, I'm not certain it's revenge myself… or that it's even directed specifically at Ziva."

"What do you mean, Boss?"


End file.
